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Chapter 1
With nothing more on his mind than crank baits and a frosty brew, Simon Wolfe, a lumberjack of a man of Irish and Native descent, opened the door to his work shed. He flicked on the fluorescent desk lamp on the workbench, adjusted the magnifying ring and examined a four-inch length of cedar, savoring the sweet fragrance and the texture of the wood beneath his fingers.
What had started out as a hobby turned into a business, a very profitable business. He had contracts with all the major department stores and sporting goods shops throughout the province and could leave his day job if he wanted. Not that he wanted.
He decided on a lure for pan fish and drew a pattern for the shape on a piece of cardboard to use as a template. Taking the coping saw in his hand, he placed the wood block in the vice and sawed just outside the line. He inspected the cut from all angles to ensure even conformity on both sides. To fool a fish into gobbling his handmade decoy, it needed to be perfect.
The shrill ring of the telephone severed his concentration. He had his calls forwarded from the station. "Chief Wolfe."
"You'd better get out here quick," the caller said in a rush. "Someone just dropped off a dead body in my drills."
"Whoa, there. Take a deep breath and tell me who you are and where you're at." Simon heard the caller inhale and exhale.
"It's Jedediah Crowe in Shampers Bluff."
Shampers Bluff was one of many small hamlets dotting the area surrounding Honeydale on Beauchamp Island, one-half mile off the coast of the southern tip of New Brunswick.
"Stay out of the crime scene. I'm on my way." He needed to preserve the crime scene and Jedediahtromping around in it meant it was already compromised.
He disconnected the call and punched in the number for the station. His rookie deputy, Aubrey Thatcher, answered.
"Aubrey, we've got a body in Shampers Bluff. Get the crime scene equipment--Polaroid camera, film, evidence bags, plastic gloves, strobe lights, everything, and meet me there."
Simon pulled the four-by-four to a stop across from the Crowe farm and stepped out of the vehicle.
Jedediah ran out of his house and across the road. "Oh, Jesus. I ain't never seen anything like it, chief."
Sympathizing with Jedediah's shock, Simon placed a hand on the farmer's shoulder. "Tell me what happened."
He straightened. "My dog was barking like the hounds of Hell chased after him. I came out and saw someone dragging something into the field." He pointed across the road. "I decided to take a look ... Oh, God." He shoved his hand through his hair and shook his head.
"Can you describe the person?"
Jedediah gulped in air. "It was too dark for me to get a good look, and by the time I got my boots on and a flashlight, the car was already down the road."
"Do you know what kind of vehicle it was?"
He shook his head. "I don't know one car from the other."
"Did you touch anything, move anything?"
"As soon as I figured out what it was, I got the hell out of there."
Careful where he stepped, Simon trekked up the small incline where Jedediah had indicated. He smelled it, the putrid odor of death and the metallic scent of blood. Drawing closer, he scanned the area with his Maglite and got his first view of the victim.
A man's body lie spread-eagled between two rows of soil. His longish brown hair hung sloppily around his head, his eyes staring straight up. His dress shirt was open and stained with blood, his muddied dress pants and boxers bunched at his knees. His penis hung from cylinders of soft, spongy tissue.
Simon nearly lost the contents of his stomach. He choked back bile, forced composure by studying the bullet hole in the man's chest and the powder burns. "You royally pissed someone off, mister."
He implanted in his mind the position of the body, the victim's approximate weight and height, the drag marks, the trampled footprints, and the distance to the road.
The island saw a couple of murders every other year or so, the result of domestic dispute or bar fights that turned deadly, but nothing so premeditated or gruesome as this. If one of theirs committed this murder, nothing would be the same on the island again.
He turned at the sound of someone lumbering up the hill. Stepping back in his footprints, he signalled to Aubrey, a six-foot beanpole with red hair that curled from the root and deep-set hazel eyes, to stay put.
"Jesus H. Christ!" Aubrey stared at the body.
Shock registered in his eyes, his Adam's apple bobbed. Simon recognized what would come next. "Don't you be sick on me."
Aubrey gasped, pulled a red polka-dotted hankie from his back pocket and wiped his brow. "I'm ... fine. Just ... just need to catch my breath."
Simon passed him an antacid tablet.
"Thanks. What kind of monster do you suppose did that?"
"Aubrey, I want you to take Crowe's statement." Simon pointed to Jedediah standing in the middle of the road.
Following the direction of Simon's hand, he nodded.
"It won't be long before we draw an audience. Call Henry and get him out here. He hasn't much experience, but he can do crowd control, and get the Doc here, too." Simon wasn't sure if he had his deputy's full attention. "I don't want any mistakes." He handed him a pocketsize recorder. "Use this and take notes, also. Canvass the residents once they show. Ask if anyone heard or saw anything, a car, voices, anything and nobody gets through except the Doc. Got that?"
"Are you calling in outside help?"
"This is our island, our town, our people. We'll handle it."
When Aubrey left, Simon taped off the crime scene, set up the strobe lights and shot off one pack of film, then another, recording the scene. He slid on gloves, bagged the victim's hands, secured them with elastic bands around the wrists and carefully went through his pockets--wallet, a pack of gum, change, a paper clip, a pen, one telephone message from Bill Hogart marked 'Urgent', two foil-wrapped condoms. No car keys. No cell phone. He bagged, labeled, listed them and checked the ID.
Coroner Travis "Harley" Coombs, a five-foot-five welterweight with a reverence for the dead that both endeared and amazed, trekked up the hill.
Simon nodded. "It isn't pretty, Doc."
"Death never is." Harley looked at the body and made the sign of the cross. "Whooiee. Someone didn't like this feller." He adjusted his bow tie. "What's his name?"
"Douglas Miller. Can you give me an approximate time of death?"
Harley applied pressure to Miller's arm. "No rigor and the body's still warm. Lividity is still blanching. Allowing for the cooler temperature, I'd say he's been dead less than two or three hours."
"That would make it," Simon checked his watch, "between seven and ten."
"I'll be able to give you a more specific time after the autopsy." Harley patted Miller's hand. "Don't you worry none, young fella. We'll find out who did this to you."
